Description:

The aim of the course is to introduce mechanisms of propagation of optical waves in optical fibers and fiber components. Furthermore, the optical measuring techniques and measuring methods for the characterization of optical fibers will be presented. Lectures include both the design and methodology of measuring transmission parameters for optical communication systems such as numerical aperture, attenuation, dispersion, and measurement of basic characteristics of active and passive elements of optical communication systems - connectors, splices, couplers, refractive indices etc.

Contents:

1. Basic concepts and definitions, optical fibers
2. Modal structure, evanescent wave, measurement of optical fiber waveguides, excitation conditions, modal filter, measuring of numerical aperture
3. Optical spectrum analyzers
4. Measurement of the rise time and the transmission characteristics of optical transmission system, advanced measurements with OTDR
5. Measuring of dispersion properties of fibers
6. Measurement of nonlinear effects in optical fibers, optical solitons
7. Optical sampling pulse regeneration
8. Measurement of the refractive index profile, cut-off wavelengths
9. Optical interferometers
10. Methods based on coherent optical detection, optical polarimeters
11. In-situ methods
12. Methods based on measurement of OSNR, noise measurements
13. Microstructured optical fibers
14. Measurement of parameters of all-optical systems, design tools for simulations

Seminar contents:

1. Recapitulation of optics and wave theory, electron optics
2. Measurement of fiber losses, cables, and properties of non-ideal connectors
3. Measurement of numerical aperture and modal field, measurement 4-port parameters
4. Measurement of micro- and macro - bending impacts
5. Measurement of the rise time of the optical transmission system
6. Measurement of soliton pulses
7. Measurement with nonlinear fiber
8. Measurement of wavelength division multiplex (WDM)
9. Measurement of optical reflectometer (OTDR)
10. Measurement of dispersion
11. Mach-Zehnder fiber interferometer
12. Measurement of beam profile
13. Test
14. Check of measurement reports

Recommended literature:

[1] Agrawal G. P.: Fiber-Optic Communications Systems, Third Edition., John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
[2] R. Hui and M. S. O'Sullivan, Fiber optic measurement techniques. Elsevier/Academic Press, 2009.

Abbreviations used:

Semester:

• W ... winter semester (usually October - February)
• S ... spring semester (usually March - June)
• W,S ... both semesters

Mode of completion of the course:

• A ... Assessment (no grade is given to this course but credits are awarded. You will receive only P (Passed) of F (Failed) and number of credits)
• GA ... Graded Assessment (a grade is awarded for this course)
• EX ... Examination (a grade is awarded for this course)
• A, EX ... Examination (the award of Assessment is a precondition for taking the Examination in the given subject, a grade is awarded for this course)

Weekly load (hours per week):

• P ... lecture
• C ... seminar
• L ... laboratory
• R ... proseminar
• S ... seminar